Writing for Publication

10 Feb Writing for Publication

When I should have been writing my dissertation in 2009 I wrote a few articles for publication, but in the last 12-18 months my writing has pretty much stalled apart from blogging which I continue to do on a regular basis, and occasional articles for regional newsletters (because I’m on committees and sometimes get asked to write something up for the newsletter). Most of my publications have been in newsletter and magazines – I’ve only been through the peer-review process once and it was an event report so not as rigorous as a research article.

Writing is one of my focus areas for my Chartership, and something I’d like to improve, particularly with publishing my research in peer-reviewed journals (or professional journals). There have been some interesting discussions on the value of peer-review recently on Twitter and blogs, and it’s something I am still deciding my view on – I see the value in sharing via a blog (mainly for the currency and immediacy factor), but for research articles the longevity and kudos of a peer-reviewed journal make it far more appealing. I’m keen to support Open Access and would rather publish in an open access publication that I could also link to via my blog, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

In order to try to get back on track with writing, last week I attended the first of a two-part workshop on Writing for Publication. Below are my notes from the day (probably only of use to others who use lists – sorry!):

Getting started

Why do research and write about it?

Pass on knowledge to others (within and outside workplace)

Self reflection

Sharing lessons learned (so others don’t make same mistakes)

Share good practice

Open up new ideas

Boost CV

Promote library service

Prevent reinventing the wheel

Challenges and solutions:

[table id=1 /]

Writing styles

Good article:

Clarity

Structure/sections

Strong, recognisable words and phrases

Attractive layout

Clear reason for reading it

Clear summary

Good conclusions

Bad article:

Long words unnecessarily

Too many acronyms

Title not matching content

Silliness

Changing statistic styles (not clear)

Repackaging same information

Common paper structure

Introduction (often written last)

Literature review – concluding with clear demonstration of gap in literature and justification for article

Aims/objectives (key to the article to help hold it all together) – this might just be the aims and objectives of the article rather than the larger project

Methods – need to be good enough to enable someone else to replicate research

Results – use chart if relevant but don’t then repeat in article

Discussion – look at what you have done and compare to other literature, and suggest limitations of your research or perhaps why you got results you weren’t expecting

Conclusion – summary of what you have done and what you found (shouldn’t have anything new that hasn’t already been said)

Submission process

Article goes to editor

Editor removes any identifying details

Editor allocates 2 appropriate peer reviewers

Peer review send back comments within certain timeframe

Editor makes decision based on peer review and own comments

Decision to author (with constructive feedback)

Author completes revisions and sends back to editor (useful to highlight what changes you have made i.e. how you have made them)

Editor verifies revisions and edits article

Check back with author

Send to copyeditor

Check back with author (final chance to make sure you as author are happy with final article)

Final edits

Layout

Final proofread

Publication!

General tips:

Find what works best for you

Time of day

Approach – either starting with structure and fleshing out each section or just getting everything down and editing later

Motivators – what will motivate you to write? Rewards? Getting housework done first or leave until after?

Useful to have someone checking on your progress and keeping it on track to make sure you stick to your timescale and targets.

Start small – newsletters, blogs, in house journal, website

Choose who your audience is and which journal to approach (look at some of the other articles) – email before writing to see if it would be appropriate for the journal. Two to consider might be:

Library and Information Research

Evidence Based Librarianship in Practice

Ask other people if they know which journal might be a good fit for your article

Read other articles and critically appraise (can use a tool/matrix to help with this)

If you find a structure that you like, use it as a template

Make sure you read the guidelines for the journal

If writing for field outside LIS, consider co-authoring with someone in that field

What next?

I’m attending the second of these workshops on Monday and have been set homework to do before then – an outline structure for an article and finding a potential journal to approach. I have a few ideas of articles I’d like to publish but I am particularly keen to share our experiences from CPD23. I’ve made contact with potential collaborators and am now starting to plan some ideas. I’d also like to consider publishing some of my dissertation more widely, particularly the market orientation aspect. I’d also like to write up some of the work I’ve been doing at Evidence Base – we write so many reports but don’t tend to take time to write up articles. I’m aiming to get at least one peer-reviewed research article published this year, so fingers crossed I can keep my motivation going and get something good enough to be accepted!

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2 Comments

Thank you for writing this. I’m still a student and trying to get a handle on either editing a class project for publication or starting an article from scratch. I will bookmarking be referring to your post as a road map!